Isaac Watts was born in Southampton, England, on 17 July 1674, into a household where religious conviction was inseparable from risk. He died on 25 November 1748, having become one of the most widely read and sung English writers of his age. To later generations he would be called the “father of English hymnody,” a title that is not merely honorary. Before Watts, English Protestant congregations, especially among the…
“Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind, which are delivered down from generation to generation.”
Neighbourhood:
Devotional Poets, Hymn Writers, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Spirituality, Sorrow, Despair
Charles Wesley was born on 18 December 1707 at Epworth, Lincolnshire, into a household that was at once crowded, precarious, intellectually ambitious, and intensely religious. He was the eighteenth child of Samuel Wesley, rector of Epworth, and Susanna Wesley, whose formidable discipline and devotional intelligence made her one of the great formative presences in the history of English Methodism. Nineteen children we…
Neighbourhood:
Devotional Poets, Hymn Writers, Victorian Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Spirituality, Peace, Joy
